Prometheus Vol. 2: An Audiobook

Promethiad #2

by Frankie Boyle

A collection of Frankie Boyle's Guardian Newspaper articles. This is the second instalment of his eight-volume Promethiad.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Politics, Essays

Audiobook

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Francis Martin Patrick "Frankie" Boyle is a Scottish comedian and writer, well known for his pessimistic, often controversial sense of humour. He was a permanent panellist on Mock the Week for seven series and has made guest appearances on several popular panel shows including Have I Got News for You, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Would I Lie to You?, You Have Been Watching, Never Mind the Buzzcocks (as guest host and team captain when Phill Jupitus was unavailable for recording), and Argumental, as well as writing for Jimmy Carr's Distraction and Sean Lock's TV Heaven, Telly Hell.

Reviews

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of Boyle's writing, read monotonically by the author. The Guardian articles are mostly great, as they were when published, although Boyle's voice tends to run from one straight into another in a way that's often hard to break up into mental chunks. There's a couple included that the Guardian refused to publish for various reasons, but you have to listen to the whole thing to find them in the 5 hours 20 minutes of this epic read-a-thon. It goes a bit off the rails towards the end when Boyle tries to describe his rejected Black Mirror idea (it sounds like rejection was the best thing for it to be honest), but it bounces back a little bit at the end.

[Eddie Kristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a few arguments I've held in my head against recommending Frankie Boyle

1) Shock humor is lazy and ages gracelessly.

Any of the Boyle's metaphors can drown this thought in shallow water. It hammers you because it's shocking but it sticks with you because it's devastatingly clever.

2) Frankie is too harsh and never earnest.

Comedy always takes the easy road of punching up when it comes to editorializing. This is because we want comedians to be nice. Nobody is going to write a sketch or a standup script laughing at the victims of abusive employment practices or taking the piss out of earnest humanitarian efforts. That's "not nice." We also balk at hurting the aggressors because we want comfortable entertainment. We want David vs. Goliath but only if David fruitlessly and gracefully sails stones over and past the giants head for our amusement. It's like Vonnegut says about the anti-war effort being "as effective as a custard pie being dropped six feet off a ladder." Nigel Farage with UKIP and Trump with the Alt-Right flourish while comedians and celebrities drop their custard pies to express distaste because that keeps them in the right circles. The BBC has enough surrealistic caricatures populating their lovely, silly panel shows. Because Frankie Boyle punches up but punches hard, he is the most earnest among them.

3) Don't fight fire with fire.

But can't we call an arsonist an arsonist? The Overton window has been blown so wide that public outrage of the Iraq war has been reduced to cooing awe over various gifs of George W Bush giving Michelle Obama a candy. Maybe the state of international politics isn't as bad as we all think and the most recent flourish of nationalists and fascists will die away with the crippled minds of a dying generation. Until that happens I'll justify a few madmen like Frankie Boyle will have to grip the steadily drooping ledge of the Overton window and run it in the opposite direction until the court of public opinion can once again oppose Nazism.

Maybe to find Boyle's vitriolic, Glaswegian pessimism refreshing, you have to be in on the joke. Maybe, like me, you have to meet a few narcissistic monsters who force their daughters into denim jumpers and tell them their value is in childbirth but their sexuality is evil - teach their sons that the civil war and the holocaust are at very least... misrepresented - tell their wives that they are property and their agency is a single verse in Ephesians that says, "obey." - and that God and country are the most important things but are adhered to ONLY when they make life comfortable, profitable, and insular - and sometimes this working class Jesus tells us that the environment doesn't matter, that minority citizens shouldn't have the right to peaceful protest or democracy, that service workers shouldn't be paid a living wage, and that immigrants make out country a worse place to live.

Frankie Boyle is vulgar. I disagree with his choices regularly. I can't deny that parts of listening didn't feel good. He's harsh enough.

I give Frankie Boyle 3.5 stars. Go read something nicer, I guess.

[MichaelK · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's Frankie Boyle reading his Guardian columns from the last few years, and some new pieces that were rejected from publication. If that sounds like something you'll enjoy, you probably will.

[M Pereira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uses lots of his gags from stand up. Hits interesting that The Guardian publised his columns in the first place. A fun read.

[Gerard · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOL

[Rusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frankie Boyle reads this collection of his newspaper columns in a bleak monotone that really suits the mood of the articles. Funny, insightful and nihilistically dark, it's what I've come to expect from this more mature, politically switched on version of Boyle. Topics mostly cover British politics, Brexit and humanities bleak future. Don't worry though, we probably won't be around long enough to worry much about it. Maybe that's why Boyle sounds even more depressed than usual in his narration.

There are a few duds and like a lot of supposedly left wing commentators it's a shame Frankie wasn't fully behind Corbyn and bought into the manufactured antisemitism scandal. This is new progressive Frankie, so it's not that big a shock as identity politics often trumps genuine left wing ideas.

Saying all that, if you like Boyle's watch the world burn style humour, then this free audiobook is well with listening to.